Monsters and Aliens: Deadine
by Bra1n1ac
Summary: When the Time Traveler, calling himself Mark Lightley, goes into the future, to try to discern how human civilization fell, a struggle begins to find some way to change the past, and stop the aliens and monsters responsible for the horrible event, which future men call "the Deadline."
1. Chapter 1: The Time Traveler

Monsters and Aliens: Deadline

Chapter 1: The Time Traveler

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><p>511/1810, Ingolstadt, Germany

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><p>The sun had set three hours before, and no one was left in that place on the hillside, except two men. As the shadows had consumed the many headstones and other grave markers of ancient times, hiding them from the naked eye, two pairs of mortal eyes looked into one of the graves. Yet, one of those men was completely unaware that the other was there.<p>

The first of the men was tall and slim, with a prominent forehead and a smile on his face. Indeed, there was something unnatural about the way he went to his work, digging away at the grave with the large, heavy-looking shovel. At last, however, just enough dirt had been removed, that the wooden surface of a coffin lid could be seen in the light of his small lantern. Slowly, using both the shovel and his gloved hands, he cleared away some of the dirt, then took a pick from the ground nearby, attacking the side of the lid with it, until it began to give under the assault. Finally, after putting a cloth over his face, he was able to pull the lid open, and there, he seemed to be astonished by what he'd found.

Slowly, muttering to himself, the man put down his pick and picked up what looked like a bag of surgical tools. That stage of the work seemed to take only a small amount of time, before he removed something from the coffin, closing the lid back up. Then, in just a moment, he seemed to have packed his prize away, and was getting back up out of the hole. Soon, he'd started on the task of replacing the disturbed dirt, and that seemed to take longer.

As the first man finished his work, however, and began to walk towards the cemetary exit, muttering to himself, the second man made his decision. The time had come to approach him.

The second man went by the name of Mark Lightley, and he'd been hiding in the shadows for the entire time. He wasn't as tall, or as thin as the first, but his hair was the same color of dark brown, and his face held a similar look of wide-eyed curiosity over the things that surrounded him. Still, his expression, at the moment, was grim, because everything was riding on his success.

As Mark had watched the graverobber finish his work, however, there was something that he hadn't noticed. A strong gust of wind had swept over him in the darkness, just as the graverobber had been picking up his tools to go. Mark hadn't thought anything of it, at the time. One expects wind on a night like that one, but just as he was about to advance towards the graverobber, and confront him, he felt strong hands seize him from behind, pulling him back behind the mausoleum, which he'd been hiding near.

At first, Mark felt close to a panic, until he looked into the face of the one who'd grabbed him, and gasped in alarm at what he saw. It was his own face, though it looked just a bit older and more worn.

"Did..." Mark whispered to his attacker, "Did I do something wrong? Is that why you're here?"

"Yes." his double replied, "Your plan isn't going to work. I came back here to try something else."

It was very confusing, and certainly, the first time that Mark had ever met a double of himself, but it made some sense to him, at least. Finally, after only a second or two, he nodded, and replied, "You know what needs to be done better than I do. Go ahead. I'll wait here, and we can discuss things when you get back."

However, the other him was shaking his head a moment later.

"We'll both go." he said, pulling a small machine from his pocket, with a series of buttons in the middle, "Don't worry. I know it's confusing, but you'll understand everything in a moment."

Then, Marks double pressed a button on his small machine, and in a flash, he began to fade from sight. It was stunning, but as he vanished, the remaining Mark felt memories flood into his mind; memories drawn from something that no longer existed, and it was a very strange feeling. Suddenly, he remembered his first attempt at approaching the graverobber, and his first failure, when an electrical charge had sprung forth from the severed arm, which the graverobber had stolen, shocking him into unconsciousness. It had been quite a spectacular failure, and it had tought him one thing; he needed to try to reason with the doctor, even though that didn't seem likely to work either.

Of course, there were other differences too. He remembered several more days' worth of experiences, and the machine, which the other version of himself had been holding, had found its way into his hand. He also knew what the machine was, and what it was for, and quickly slipped it into his own pocket a moment later. He knew there wasn't any more time to waste. In just a second, he'd stepped out from the shadows to intercept the graverobber, just as he was about to reach the cemetary's main gate.

For a moment, the graverobber started to look as though he was panicking, but that was when Mark held up both hands, in a universal gesture of truce.

"Don't worry, doctor. I'm not a policeman, and I don't mean to turn you in. I'd just like to talk with you, if that's alright."

The doctor seemed to have calmed down a bit as he heard those words, but the wide-eyed, curious look that he'd had, a few moments before, had turned into a casual frown.

"I'm a very busy man." the doctor replied, trying his best to brush past Mark. However, the new arrival stayed with him.

"I'm sorry, but I must insist." Mark continued, "This may be the most important matter that you ever discuss with anyone, in your entire life."

It was only then, that the doctor stopped where he was, and turned to face the man who'd just accosted him. There was a curious, and yet annoyed look in his face, but in a moment, he was watching the strangers eyes as he replied.

"I'm sure you don't know what I've really been up to here, so I'll tell you." the graverobbing doctor began, "I'm at work on unlocking the secrets of perhaps the most important scientific discovery ever; eternal life. Eternal life, sir. Do you know what that means?"

"I know more about your project than you could guess." Mark said, however, "You plan to use that body part, and numerous others like it, to create, from a mix of real and artificial parts, a living, breathing, human being. Isn't that right, Doctor Frankenstein?"

The doctor's eyes grew wide when he heard those words, but only for a moment. Soon, they'd narrowed again, and a suspicious tone had come into his voice when he spoke next.

"Just how do you know all of that?" Victor Frankenstein asked, clearly distrustful of the newcomer, "I thought I'd kept this a secret from everyone. Have you been spying on me?"

"No, doctor." Mark replied, however, "It wasn't necessary to spy on you, in order to find this out. I'll be glad to explain to you how I came by this knowledge, but in exchange, I want you to hear out a request of mine."

The doctor still looked suspicious, but after a few moments, raising his lantern, to get a good look at the other man's face, and apparently satisfying himself that it wasn't anyone he knew, he nodded and gave a slight jerk of his head, to indicate that the other man should follow him. So, a few moments later, the two men were traveling down the hillside together, and although there was still no guarantee that anything good would result from their meeting, Mark couldn't help but smile just a little. Things certainly seemed to be going better than they had last time.

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><p>At last, the two men arrived at a large manor house, which sat on one of the hills, within walking distance of the cemetary. Frankenstein had unlocked the door, pushed it open, and invited his guest in first, following behind, then closing the door and locking it. In just a moment, he'd placed his lantern on the table in the central of the room, which was just to the left, past the entrance hallway, and invited his guest to take a seat at the table, while he, in his own words "got them some light." Soon, the new arrival could hear the hum of an electric machine of some kind, and a short time after that, there was the sound of some electrical discharge as well. In just a few more moments, Dr. Victor Frankenstein had returned with a pair of small lamps, which he place on either side of the room. The light was still dim, compared to what the traveler had been used to recently, but with the lantern itself factored it, it was enough for their purposes.<p>

"Now, you wanted to know who I am, but I'm afraid I can't tell you my real name." the traveler began, "If you need something to call me, though, 'Mark Lightley' will do. I've gone by that name before. This story of mine is going to be hard to believe, but I hope you'll at least try to take me seriously. You see, I won't even be born for another fifty years."

Doctor Frankenstein did look a bit perplexed when he heard those words, but soon, he'd taken a seat at the table, opposite his guest, folding his hands on the table top, and listening intently.

"As a young man," Lightley explained, "I rose to the top of my class in college, and made a name for myself in debating in favor of certain controversial subjects."

"Such as what?" the doctor asked, leaning forward, and watching his guest intently.

"Why?" Lightley asked, starting to feel confused, "Do you need to know every detail?"

"Sir, I'm a scientist." Frankenstein replied, growing irritated again, "Of course I do."

"But we'll be here all night!"

"Do you have some other appointment tonight?"

"No, but..."

"Then give me details, please. Be thorough."

Lightley sighed, leaning back in his chair just a little, but at the very least, it seemed as though Frankenstein was taking his seriously, and that was positive.

"Alright, then." Lightley replied, "The truth is, I argued in favor of two claims; one sociological; that human beings were, at base, decent, and that everyone really understood the most basic kind of human morality. Now, that doesn't mean people always do the right thing; just that they know the basics of what the right thing is, even if they don't realize it. In spite of everything, I still see people as basically decent."

"And your other claim?"

"My other claim is the more relevant one to this discussion. I argued that time and space aren't the separate things that they appear to be, but are merely two dimensions of a single, combined whole; a spacetime continuum. This theory has been given a few names since then, and I couldn't prove it conclusively at the time, but now I can. You see, if any other theory of time were correct, time travel would be impossible."

At first, the time traveler had been afraid that Doctor Frankenstein would interrupt him at that point, with scorn and disbelief, but instead, he only looked more intently at his guest, and remained totally silent. It made him feel more confident when he saw that, so he quickly continued his story, describing his experiments into temporal physics, and his first prototype time machine; a tiny, hand-held device, which he'd sent off into time on its own. They, he began talking about the full-sized machine, and his first trip into the far future, where he'd found a world empty of human civilization, and inhabited only by the weak and helpless eloi, and by the brutal, savage morlocks. Distant relations, perhaps, of men, but none of them fully civilized. In the process, all of Lightley's theories about time travel had been confirmed, though he'd also gotten the sense that some future catastrophe, either natural or man-made, would bring human civilization to an end at some future date.

"At the time, nothing seemed odd about that." Mark explained, "After all, I'd gone over eight hundred thousand years into the future, and I hadn't expected humanity to last that long. I was disoriented by the strange things I'd seen, so I traveled back to my own time, and spent a while recuperating. Once I had my mind back in order, I admit that the ultimate fate of the world still didn't trouble me, because my next action was to gather some friends together, to see if any of them would believe my story without further evidence. Of course, not one of them did, and somewhere inside, I think I felt hurt by that, though it was probably silly of me to expect them to believe me. In any case, the fate of the world hadn't been troubling me, because I was still too consumed by the prospect of proving that my machine really worked. I got together a camera, a notebook, and some small bags for samples, and got back into my machine."

"The machine worked, just as it had before. Soon, I was traveling forward through time again at an enormous pace. My first thought was to return to the future time I'd visited in the first place; perhaps even the very same time I'd left, but my memories of the savage morlocks kept me from that course. Instead, I decided to visit another future time; a closer one, so I began to turn the dials, watching the flowers outside my window grow and wilt, then be covered over with snow in seconds. Soon, snow was falling and melting, and the sky seemed to flicker with the passage of days and the falling of rain. At last, the building around me began to fall into ruin, and the nearest city began to rise to enormous heights, shimmering as it did so. I'd seen it all before, but it was still quite a sight."

"At last, however, I saw that the lights of the city had gone out, and weren't coming back on again. I immediately slowed my machine down, until I'd realigned with the proper flow of time, and the moment I did, something happened, which filled me with dread."

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><p>Mark felt the machine shake underneath him as he came to a stop; not as though it were grinding to a halt, but as if something had gone wrong in the machine itself. It almost forced his heart into his throat, to think that when he needed it most, something might have happened to his machine. However, there was no question that something had indeed gone wrong. He almost felt as though he was in danger of flying right out of the machine, but he gripped the front bar for support, and soon, the feeling passed. Still, that feeling was far from the worse thing that he was about to face, he realized, as he looked at the display on the time machine, to discover that none of the meters were moving. However it had happened, his time machine had stopped working completely, just as he'd returned to the normal flow of time.<p>

Quickly, Mark got out of his machine, tapping the lid on the side of it, to be sure that it was safe to touch it, and in a moment, he'd found that, in fact, it felt colder than normal after a trip. Soon, the lid was open, and he was examining the insides of the machine for anything that might be causing the trouble. The visual inspection only took a few seconds, but unfortunately, he couldn't spot the source of the problem. It was just that nothing seemed to be working. The various tiny components were all in their proper places, but none of them were receiving power.

Still, after thinking it over for a few seconds, Lightley realized that there were a number of clues about what had happened. For one thing, the fact that it had happened so soon, after returning to normal time. It wasn't the jolt of rejoining the time continuum that had caused the problem, because nothing had been shaken out of its proper place. That meant that there was only one possible explanation. There was something in that time period, which was interfering with the normal functions of his machine. For just a moment, he wished that he'd thought to build pedals into it; like a bicycle, if only to get it out of the empty plot of land, where he found himself, but there wasn't much that he could do about it at that point. He had to face the reality of his situation. He was trapped, alone, in another time, and the machine that he'd counted on to take him back was useless, either for transporting him home, or even for telling him the precise date or year.

He didn't like the idea of just leaving his machine there, but knew he didn't have a choice. If he was ever going to get it working again, he needed to know just what had made it stop, and that meant leaving, to find some people, and get some kind of explanation from them, and perhaps some supplies. He had a few provisions in the compartment, which he'd built into the space behind his seat in the time machine, but they were only enough for about three days.

Still, Lightley had removed his provisions within a minute or two, heading off down a nearby road, which was surprisingly-smooth and flat, and made of some substance that he didn't recognize, although it was cracked in several places.

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><p>The obvious thing to do had been to travel towards the city. If anyone was left in that area, they'd be more likely to be there, rather than out in the fields somewhere, he'd decided. Still, he'd originally underestimated the distance to the city. It turned out that, actually, the city buildings were much larger and further away than he'd thought, at first, and he needed to stop several times, to take a drink from one of the canteens of water that he'd brought with him. He was walking in the direction of the city for what felt like hours, though he couldn't tell exactly how long it had been, and he still hadn't reached the buildings on the outskirts, when something happened, which changed his plans.<p>

It had seemed, for some time, as though there was no one around for miles, but suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Lightley saw a shadow move behind one of the nearby bushes, and stopped where he was for just a moment, to get a better look.

Sure enough, when he squinted, he could just make out the shadow of a human head behind the bush, looking as though it were trying to conceal itself a little better, and not really succeeding. It almost made Lightley smile, because he knew that it was the head of a child, who didn't know they'd been discovered. Still, he needed answers, and that was the first person he'd spotted in hours, so whatever reason the child had for wanting to stay hidden, Mark would need to get his attention.

"Excuse me..." Mark said, but the head just squirmed a little in response, and tried to retreat further, which only resulted in the child's lower legs protruding a little from behind the other side of the bush, and becoming even more visible.

"May I ask you some questions?" Mark asked, but again, the only response was for the child to back off again, becoming even more visible. He waited for several more seconds, but somehow, he knew that the child wasn't going to give him a response, so in the end, he had to be direct. Advancing towards the child's position in just a dozen or so long steps, the time traveler was pleased to see that, at the least, he was getting a reaction, and a better look at the boy. Still, the sight of the boy almost made Mark cringe.

He was a ragged boy, dressed in old clothes, which were incredibly finely-woven, but were falling apart at the seams, as though they'd been designed to do just that. He was skinny, to almost the point of being skeleton-like, and was clearly dehydrated and malnourished, but there was a cold, calculating look in his face, as he watched the time traveler, which seemed strange, since he was clearly very scared as well. Overall, he looked like just the sort of boy who'd had a great deal of practice at mastering his fears. By itself, Mark found that troubling, but after getting over his initial shock, he found that all the boy really made him feel was pity.

Slowly, Lightley bent down, to the point where his head was only a foot or so over the boy's, and when he spoke again, he noticed something else. There were bruises up and down one of the boy's legs.

"Lad..." Mark said, letting his feelings finally show on his face, as he reached out one hand for the boy, "Are you living by yourself, or has someone been mistreating you?"

However, the boy still didn't respond at first, and he didn't take Mark's hand.

"Can you tell me what happened here?" Lightley asked, trying to coax something out of the boy.

Still nothing, so he decided to try a different approach, even though it would probably cost him some of his own provisions.

"You look like you could use a good meal and something to drink."

With those words, the boy's face brightened up, so soon, the man from the past had brought out his supplies, and handed some of them to the boy. Still, what the boy did then was a surprise. Instead of immediately starting to eat, he took each piece of food in turn, and carefully smelled it, then took a bit of this and that, rubbing it on his hand. When he was done with that strange procedure, and had done the same with some of the water, he took just a small taste of the bread, the meat and one apple, then a short sip of water, and sat down on the ground again, silently, watching the food, as though, at any moment, it might spring to life and attack him. He remained in that position for several minutes; perhaps as many as fifteen or twenty, before a happy smile finally came to his face, and he begain to devour the food in front of him, though even so, he was frugal with the water. At last, he was finished, and his grin was contageous. Then, with the most relieved expression that Lightley had ever seen, the boy looked up at him, as though expecting something else, but not daring to request it.

"Go ahead." the time traveler said with a smile, the moment that he saw the pleading look on the boy's face, "If you can speak, speak."

"You remind me of Jake."

"There we are. I knew you could talk." Lightley observed in relief, following it up with, "Who's Jake?"

"Jake the survivor. The man living in the cabin just... just..."

For a moment, the boy paused, as though unsure of whether or not to continue, but finally, he said, "Sorry, but Jake says not to tell folks where he lives."

"Well, that's alright." Mark replied, smiling a little more broadly, "I didn't really come here looking for Jake. I just need to ask a few questions. That's all."

"Shoot." the boy said, nodding his head a couple of times as he took another sip from one of Mark's canteens.

"I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"Shoot."

"Is there something wrong with the water?"

At that point, the boy looked at him strangely, but also with a sense of great curiosity, before finally replying "No, I just mean that you can ask me stuff if you want to."

Mark didn't waste any more time after that.

"When I first arrived here, I was using a machine, and it stopped working almost immediately. Do you know why that is?"

Again, however, the boy looked at Mark strangely when he said that. Still, after a few seconds, he nodded, and made his reply.

"It was probably electric. Electric machines haven't worked since before I was born."

It was clear that the boy had questions of his own, but he decided to sit on them, for the time being, as he took another nibble out of an apple.

"Do you know why they stopped working?" Mark asked next.

"Not sure." the boy replied, however, "Aliens or something, I heard."

Lightley had a hard time believing that explanation, but he still had a few questions to ask.

"Do you know anyone who would be able to tell me more?"

The boy's expression grew stern at that point, but he replied quickly enough.

"Jake could tell you. He knows lots of stuff, and he answers questions too."

"May I speak with Jake?"

However, it was disheartening when, a moment later, the boy repeated one of his previous answers.

"Not sure."

"Why?"

"I'd take you to meet Jake, but only if he says it's okay. I can't let anybody find the way to his place if he doesn't want me to."

"I can understand that." Mark replied, though his expression had grown more serious as he'd been listening to the answers. Jake sounded something like a gang leader, and he still didn't know if it would be a good idea to trust him. Still, he knew that he liked the boy, and he didn't seem like a bad sort, so in a moment, Lightley had moved on to his next question.

"What's your name?"

"Ryan the Student." the boy replied without hesitating for a second.

"Your last name is 'Student?'" the time traveler asked, curiously.

"Jake says it's best to have a last name that says something about us."

Lightley had to think about that for a moment, because he'd never really thought about what kinds of last names would be best to have. Family names described where one came from, to a degree, so he just hadn't questioned it, and he wondered what kind of environment could make a person discard their family name, as that boy seemed to have done. Still, he wasn't terribly concerned about that topic; at least not as much as the next question that he wanted to ask.

"Jake... I assume he's not your father. How did you get those bruises on your leg?"

The time traveler had expected the question to be unwelcome, but the boy didn't look offended in any way; just a little confused, when he asked, "Why? What's up?"

"Well, I'm concerned about you, and I thought I might be able to help."

"Don't worry about it." the boy replied, however, "I've got some good friends, and we'll stick together. It'll be alright for me."

"Then just tell me this; was it Jake who did that to you?"

The response to that question came quickly, however.

"Nah. Jake's just trying to help. These are from... somebody else."

"I suppose that's all I really need to ask." the time traveler said, after watching the boy for a moment or two, "Will you let me know if Jake agrees to meet with me?"

"I guess so," the boy replied, getting to his boney feet, "but first off, who are you? What's your name, and where are you from?"

That, it turned out, would be the most difficult thing to answer, because while Mark could give the boy his assumed name, and answer to it, explaining where and when he'd come from would be a pretty hard ordeal.

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><p>Author's Note: Yup. This is a sequel story, of sorts, to the original "Monsters and Aliens: Bloodthirsty Savages" story that I did a while back. It's going to be pretty long, I suspect, and honestly, I don't expect to finish it. Still, I've got plans for the entire first arc of the story already. I'm taking this story at a somewhat relaxed pace, but I am enjoying myself writing it. The overall theme is the combination of all sci-fihorror that will fit into the same continuity, and will also fit in with the story continuity of Bloodthirsty Savages. I hope you'll enjoy the story as much as I do.

Bra1n1ac


	2. Chapter 2: Hansfield, Montana

Chapter 2: Hansfield, Montana

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><p>"So the child ate your food, drank your water, and left you." Dr. Frankenstein observed, summing up the part of the story that he'd heard up to that point.<p>

"Well, yes," Lightley admitted, "but he left to get permission for me to visit Jake, and I had a feeling that Jake would have more answers, so I..."

"You're a bit naive, aren't you?" Frankenstein asked him, but he wasn't frowning anymore. In fact, he looked as though he was finding the tale entertaining.

"Well, even if I'd known for certain that he was just trying to trick me, there's no way that I could have left him there, like that. I'd never have been able to live with myself." Lightley replied, however, "Besides, in this case, he was being completely honest, and I ended up benefitting from the way things went. He described me to his friend; Jake, and soon, I was shown to the front door of his cabin..."

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><p>Mark hadn't expected the cabin of Jake to be particularly fancy, but he was a little surprised by just how small, and yet, how solidly-built it was. It was made of thick wood, hammered together, not just with thin boards, but with thick, unpainted planks of various colors. Because of that, the outside of the cabin looked like a mess, but Mark had no doubt that, if the cabin had needed to, it could have survived a shot from a full-sized artillery cannon.<p>

The door of the cabin was also made of wood, and even swung around on hinges made from thick, wooden pegs, which jutted out of the wall noticably. It was very different from the kinds of doors that Lightley was used to seeing in his own time period. It wasn't more advanced, though. In fact, in its own way, it was actually more primitive.

When Ryan opened the door to let Lightley in, however, he saw that the inside of the cabin looked just as barren and primitive as the outside, if not more so. There was only one walled-off area in the entire cabin, and aside from that, it was just one open space, with a small container, made of some smooth substance in one corner of the room. There were three very basic, wooden tables in the middle of the room, but low to the ground; probably so that chairs wouldn't be needed. Anyone could have simply knelt on the floor, and reached the tabletops with relative ease.

There were also some small, wooden boxes on one side of the room, just large enough for a few pieces of clothing, or some other small belongings to be placed. In fact, the whole cabin gave Lightley a strange feeling, as though the place had been built to house as many people as possible, in the smallest possible space, without any comforts at all; not even something as basic as a bed.

The people in that place all looked thin and weak, just as Ryan did, and two or three of them looked a little sick. Mainly, the inhabitants of that cabin were boys, ranging in age from about six, all the way through their late teenage years. They all seemed to be doing work of one sort or another; grinding up some kind of material, or carrying bags in and out of the cabin. In spite of it all, however, Lightley saw more than a few smiles, when the boys would help one another with their tasks, and no on in that room smiled more than its tallest inhabitant; a man in his late fifties, who was watching as the children worked, sometimes stepping in to help one of them when there was a need. It was clear that he enjoyed working with the children, and helping them to learn how to fulfill their tasks, and they appreciated the help, and, it seemed, had learned to love him like a fathwer. At least, that was the sense that Lightley got when Ryan rushed up to the man and embraced his left leg.

For a few moments, Ryan made a game of pretending to squeeze the man's leg, and the man (who was clearly Jake,) had made a game of further messing up the boy's hair, but before long, hushed words were exchanged between the two, and soon, Jake was looking in Mark's direction, with a very serious expression on his face, which made Mark feel intensely nervous. At last, however, Jake patted Ryan on the head a couple more times, and said something else to him, which Mark couldn't quite make out. Then, he started walking right in the time traveler's direction, which made him feel even more nervous; especially considering the kind of squinting look that Jake was giving him.

"Let's step outside for a minute." Jake said, once he was within a couple yards of Mark, and Mark didn't dare to refuse, or even to question his decision to leave all of those kids unsupervised, while they talked.

* * *

><p>"Ryan's told me a few things about you that I like." Jake said, once the two were outside, and a closed door has separated them from the cacophonous mob of young boys, "He says you gave him food when he was hungry. That's good."<p>

Mark Lightley felt almost like breathing a sigh of relief, but somehow, he doubted it would be appropriate, since Jake's intimidating squint still hadn't flinched. The man was taller than Mark, and had more gray hairs, but when he wasn't smiling or playing with the children, he gave the impression of a hardened veteran, prepared to lash out at any moment. It was hard not to feel threatened, when he put on his serious expression.

"He's also told me some things about you that worry me." Jake continued just a moment later, "For example, he says he thinks you're an alien."

That remark actually did make Mark laugh just a little, but he stopped almost immediately, because Jake wasn't laughing.

"You're serious, aren't you?" Mark asked, feeling confused, "The boy mentioned aliens to me too. Perhaps he merely has a good imagination."

"He also said that you asked him why there's no electricity." Jake continued, still looking grave, "Did he imagine that too?"

"No, but what does that have to do with...?"

"You look like you're around thirty years old, which means you lived through the deadline, the same as me." Jake explained quickly, "Therefore, you should already know how and why the machines don't work, unless you're not from this world at all. Ryan had this all figured out, and I agree with his reasoning."

"But I assure you, I'm not an alien!" Lightley exclaimed, which didn't seem to reassure Jake at all, "Do I look as though I were an alien?"

"No, but that means nothing." Jake replied immediately, "Many aliens are able to disguise themselves as human beings. If you want to prove that you're human, I'll need you to answer a few questions of my own."

To Mark Lightley, the whole situation seemed absurd. The very idea that a grown mans first thought, in response to a certain line of questioning, was to suspect him of being an extraterrestrial entity, much less that some interrogation would be needed to prove his innocence, seemed so bizarre, but, he realized, he didn't have a choice. Jake seemed like the kind of person to avoid angering, without a good reason.

Soon, Mark had nodded, and Jake had begun his questioning. Before long, in spite of his caution, Mark had had the truth forced out of him; that he was a time traveler from the past, who'd never heard of aliens, or the deadline, or anything else like that. The only thing he didn't reveal was his real name, preferring to use his pseudonym, but it was pretty clear that Jake still found that part of his story suspicious. He was a very cunning and cautious man.

"In that case, I feel sorry for you." Jake said sadly, as Mark had finished his story, "It's been almost fifteen years since any electric machines have worked, and they're showing no signs of ever working again."

That statement filled Mark with fear. He knew that his machine had still worked in the far future, but he couldn't afford to wait around for eight hundred thousand years.

"There has to be someone who can get my machine working again!" Mark exclaimed, feeling desperate, "I have to return to my own time!"

However, Jake's expression had gotten a bit softer as Mark had begun to face the facts, and at last, he said, "I'm sorry. I could tell you how the deadline started, but there's not much I can do to help with your problem. Unless you can make your machine run without electricity, it's just not going to run at all anymore."

"So how am I supposed to get it working?!" Mark demanded, already close to panic, "Steam?! I... I..."

Just then, however, Mark paused, and soon, he found that new ideas were running through his mind. Not steam, of course. That could never power his time machine, but perhaps...

"I'm willing to take you at your word that you're not an alien," Jake said at last, his expression turning a bit softer, "but I don't think you've got much hope of getting back to your own time. As long as you're here, I have some advice to give you. If you want to survive in this time period, you'll need to join a gang like ours."

"A gang?"

"Well, that's what we call ourselves, but only because we stick together and protect one another when times are tough. There are lots of gangs in the world out there, but ours is one of only a few that run on rules, which forbid us from bullying others, or stealing, or killing, or doing a number of other things. It's a very old code of law, but one that's served us well. You could do a lot worse than join our gang and help with the work. We can certainly use all the help we can get."

The idea of joining what amounted to a street gang, no matter what kind of law they honored, struck Mark as a very uncomfortable one, but there was no denying that he was going to need help from someone, if his plan was going to succeed. He just had a few more things, however, that he needed to know first.

"You've been talking about 'the deadline.'" Mark began, "I'm curious. What was it?"

However, his answer came quickly, as though it was a speech that Jake had often rehearsed in his mind.

"It was October thirtieth, two thousand ten." the graying man explained, "All at once, all the power in the world went out like a candle. Nothing worked after that; not anything. The only thing that turned back on were clocks. Everywhere, all over the world, every display and clock face in the world started counting down. Well, the countdown finished, and apparently, there was some sort of alien attack at the time, but I didn't notice it. Whatever kind of attack it was, it must have been repelled somehow, because we haven't heard any more about it."

"Since then, not much has changed. It's been fifteen years, and the power still hasn't come back online. I suppose it might never come back on. People panicked during the deadline, and they still panic now. I think most of the last generation looks at the deadline as an excuse to misbehave, not that they were ever really well-behaved before. Things have been a real wreck since then, and it's hard to even survive. Still, I do the best I can, for myself and for others. It's all I can do."

"Wait a minute..." Mark said, however, trying to process what he was being told, "You're saying that electricity stopped all over the world, and never started again. Does anyone know why?"

However, Jake just shook his head a moment later, before explaining.

"Nobody knows for certain. Some people think it was the aliens, but there's other theories. If you wanted to know more, you'd have to get in contact with the folks who repelled the invasion, and I've got no idea who they might be."

So another clue had been yanked out from under Mark, but he was determined not to give up yet.

"Do you know of anyone who might have working machines still? Are there any scientists left, who are working on solving this problem?"

"Most of the scientists gave up on making the electricity work years ago."

"But what about alternative power sources? Isn't there some other way to power a machine? Perhaps some form of kinetic motion, or heat... Even in my own time, there were tales about a rogue submarine captain, who'd found some way to modify electricity, to..."

However, things had changed just then. Jake had started by shaking his head, but then suddenly, something seemed to have occurred to him, and in a moment, he'd rushed back into the cabin. Soon, he'd emerged again with a book in his hands, which was done up with a coil of metal, and inside, there were written a number of things in a very plain form of handwriting. Jake had spent only a few seconds leafing through it, before a smile came to his face, and he began to explain.

"This is my journal. I don't write in it often. Only when someone tells me something that I think might be useful to know later. Now, this might just be a rumor, so don't blame me if it turns out to be false, but I spent some time one evening, listening to a traveler complaining. He said that he'd spent over a month traveling from the Montana area, in America, and that he wondered if he'd made a mistake leaving that place behind, because they had power there, but not electric power."

"Really?" Mark asked, eager to hear more, "Did he give any specifics about where that place was?"

"Yes, he did." Jake replied, reading more of his notes, "Apparently, the town that used to be called Hansfield has become a huge city in the last fifteen years, and grown across at least three of the neighboring towns, due to their supply of power, which he says is more dangerous that electricity, but is capable of most of the same things. Heat energy runs the entire place; packaged into tiny pellets, which are used in all of the machines that have been designed in that area since the deadline. None of the old machines work anymore, but designing new ones has become a major industry, he said. However, the whole place is a totalitarian regime, run by the scientist who designed the heat pellets to begin with, which was why he left."

"Still, they might have some solution to my problem, if I can get all the way to Montana." Mark replied, smiling and feeling hopeful again, "Thank you for that information. I hope I can do you a favor in the future too."

However, just as Mark was turning to leave, he heard Jake speak again, from behind him, stopping him in his tracks.

"Wait a minute, young man. How much food do you have?"

Mark was starting to get a bad feeling about answering that question, but Jake had been fair to him up to that point, so in the end, he replied, "Not much. Barely enough for two days."

"You'd never make the trip across the ocean on that little food, even if you had something to use as payment for passage on one of the remaining ships." Jake observed sadly, "If I were you, I wouldn't even try it, until you're better-prepared."

"Then what do you suggest I do?" the time traveler asked, feeling totally lost, "I can't stay here for the rest of my life. I've got to get there somehow."

"I know." Jake replied, however, looking grave again, "I'd like to help you, but... Wait... Where did you leave your time machine?"

"In a field, some distance up the road, away from the city." Mark explained, dread already starting to form in his heart, as Jake immediately took off in that direction at a sprint, leaving Mark behind with the kids.

Hours later, when Jake got back to the cabin, he was holding a metal rod in one hand, and a plate in the other. Mark knew what had happened without even needing to be told. With all the gangs in the world, doing whatever they pleased, those fragments were all that was left of his machine.

* * *

><p>"Yet, you escaped somehow." Dr. Frankenstein observed, "You're not still trapped in the future."<p>

"True," Mark replied, "but at the time, it looked like I would be. I needed power to run my time machine, and suddenly, it was starting to look like I'd also need to build the whole thing all over from scratch. I didn't have enough materials, or enough power to get out of that time period, but I did have two advantages. First, that I was still a physicist with a talent for building machines, and I had a lot of useful knowledge in my head. The second big advantage was Jake and his gang. They liked me, and they wanted to help me, and really, I wanted to help them."

"Well, I spent over a month among them, and in that time, we all benefitted from the fact that I'd joined their group. They were really more of a club than a gang, though Jake had decided to call them that, for his own reasons. They gathered into one place to work together, and to produce some things that the people in the surrounding area needed. It was mainly lumber, vegetable oils and farming supplies of various types; things we often take for granted, but to people in that world, it often meant the difference between life and death. You see, it wasn't just that there was no electricity. Ever since before the deadline, people had basically forgotten how to produce those simple things, without the help of their machines, and many of them were emotional wrecks, in any case. It would have been hard to get any honest work out of them. In fact, most of the people who'd been teenagers or older before the deadline didn't even know what to do with themselves. Jake, fortunately, was different."

"That's the reason why he surrounded himself with children." Dr. Frankenstein guessed, "They didn't remember what life had been like with electricity, so they were able to concentrate more on their work. Perhaps even more than their parents could."

"Far more than their parents could." Mark replied, however, "In fact, that's why they all gathered around Jake. He was the only man in the area who could teach them what they needed to survive; a craft or skill of some kind. Their parents never really recovered after the deadline. A few of the boys were orphans, but in most cases, it was just that their parents were miserable and impoverished, due to not having any useful skills, and not knowing how to acquire them. On top of that, many of their parents were also emotionally unstable. I eventually learned that the bruises I'd seen on Ryan's leg had come from his mother. I never really knew why, but I suspect it was jealousy. She used to be very committed to being self-sufficient, and to suddenly find herself in a situation where her children were supporting her, more than she was supporting them... Well, I suppose it must have made her pretty mad."

"She sounds spoiled to me." Frankenstein replied, but Lightley just shrugged.

"In any case, I helped design a mechanical pump for watering the vegetable fields that Jake owned. That was my first major contribution there. It required two of the boys to manage it during the time when the crops were watered, but it still saved them quite a bit of manpower, and gave Jake the chance to assign them to other tasks. That night, he told me that he wished there was a faster way to get the goods to the marketplace in the city, and avoid the gangs; that they could accomplish ten times as much every week, if they just had a quick means of transporting their wares. I spent the next three days gathering materials, and on the fourth, I designed a vehicle for them; like a cross between a bicycle and a carriage. It was pretty flimsy, but Jake assured me that they'd have the resources they needed for better materials by the next week, and he was right."

"By the end of my first month there, I'd managed to finish work on a simple, but sturdy irrigation system, and six bicycles for various purposes, which the boys could use on errands. Sure enough, everyone in the gang had more food and water as a result of my work, and both Jake and the boys were starting to look less thin and sickly, though I'd needed to make many sacrifices of my own over the last month. However, one afternoon, as I was teaching one of the boys to fix the bicycles, Jake approached me again."

* * *

><p>Jake was smiling, as he often did when speaking to members of his gang, when he approached Mark from behind, and watched the lesson that he was giving to Barry. Barry seemed to have the most talent when it came to mechanisms and machines; figuring out how to put things together and take them apart. He was learning quickly as Lightley explained things to him, and eventually, it seemed like he could be left alone, to try working with the bicycle by himself. At that point, Lightley finally got back up off the ground, and turned to face Jake, who had his arms folded, and his head tilted to one side, as though he found the whole procedure curious.<p>

"It's amazing how fast they learn, isn't it?" Jake asked, though Mark wasn't sure how to reply to that.

"I've been looking over the supplies today." Jake said, after only a moment's pause, "This is the first time in years that we've had more than we needed. In fact, we have enough to last us through next month too, except for one thing. The food will probably spoil if we try to save it for that long."

"I wish I could do something about that," Mark replied sadly, "but you already have that box in the corner, and if it doesn't keep the food fresh enough, I'm afraid I'm out of ideas."

"Don't worry about it." Jake said, "I'm sure you'll find a use for some of it on your trip."

Mark realized what he meant at once, but he had a hard time believing it at first. Jake had helped him a lot over the last few weeks, but it was still strange to hear him making such a generous offer, all at once.

"You'll offer me all the supplies I need for the trip, and to pay for passage to America?" Mark asked, mainly to reassure himself that that was what had been meant.

"You should have some left over as well," Jake replied, "and I'm thinking of giving you one of the bicycles too, to make the trip a bit easier. Still, if you want my advice, you'll see if you can get a ride on a supply carriage, heading in that direction. It won't be as hard on your legs. Watch out, though. If you get attacked at any point on your trip, and someone takes your supplies, you might not be able to make the full trip. Montana is quite a ways west, once you reach America, so you may need to stop on the way there, if you can find a spot to pick up new supplies."

"I'm sorry to have to leave you so soon." Mark admitted at last, and he meant it, but Jake just smiled, and in another moment, remarked, "Yeah. Me too. Still, you've done an awful lot for us, and I won't forget it. God bless you."

* * *

><p>"I didn't leave them for another day and a half, of course." Mark explained, "I had to finish teaching Barry how to manage and maintain my machines. In any case, those people and their little gang stayed in my thoughts throughout my journey to the west; the long sea voyage, and my arrival in New York City. After that, though, things actually went very smoothly. I made some inquiries about supplies that were being shipped in from Montana, and how they'd arrived, and that was how I met a man named Harris Koehn. There was something just a little Jake-like about him, because he seemed like the type who was very adaptable. He'd spent his young life as a captain in what they called the 'air force,' and when the power had gone out, one of his first actions had been to design and build an pedal-driven glider plane, which he'd used since then to fly from one state to another, carrying supplies wherever honest men needed them. When I asked him if it could carry a passenger, he told me that he'd carried things a lot heavier than that, and that as long as I was willing to pay his fee, he'd take me all the way, though not in a single trip. The glider couldn't travel very fast, compared to what he called 'the big jets from when I was young,' and he couldn't keep going in it for more than a few hours at a time, while carrying cargo."<p>

"In the end, we reached a sort of a compromise. He installed a second seat and pair of pedals into the back of the glider, and I sat back there. Then, he'd tell me to start pedaling whenever he started to get tired, which made the trip go faster than it would have otherwise. Still, it was almost another week before we reached the Hansfield area."

"Once we arrived, though, I could barely believe what I was seeing. After almost two months in that future time, I found myself within sight of the largest, most advanced-looking city that I'd ever seen. Lights shone from its buildings in the dusk, and the taller ones seemed to stretch all the way up to the heavens, even as we ourselves flew through the air, under our own power. Harris let me get off near the outskirts of the city, and we parted ways, but one thing I noticed as I approached the edge of town, was that there weren't very many people or houses around the city. Cabins of various sorts had littered the landscape below us, while Harris and I had been flying over the countryside, but there weren't any near Hansfield. I wasn't sure whether I should consider that hopeful or forboding. It certainly seemed as though the gangs, who were running wild, or doing their work in other parts of the world, hadn't bothered to gather around that well-lit city."

"As I approached the city, however, I saw another middle-aged man walking towards it, and looking at me curiously, perhaps because of my tattered clothes. Still, as a local, he'd probably know more about the rules in that city than I did, so I decided to talk to him."

"'Excuse me,' I said, 'I'm new in the area. Is there anywhere in Hansfield that I could stay for a while?'"

"The man still looked curious, but he gave me a reply."

"'There a few places you could stay, but I wouldn't unless you talk to Stephanie Dobson first. She's the one in charge around here, and she likes to know about newcomers.'"

"I'd never heard of Stephanie Dobson before, but the name gave me shivers for some reason, even as I took my first few steps into Hansfield, and was immediately overwhelmed by a noise, as though thunder were crying. Suddenly, I smelled something like roasted apples with cinnamon, and in no time at all, everything went black."


	3. Chapter 3: The New Machine

Chapter 3: The New Machine

* * *

><p>As Mark slowly regained consciousness, he thought, at first, that he had a sort of film over his eyes, because the world in front of him looked glassy and unnatural. However, as he shook himself and started looking around, he realized that couldn't be the case, because he could see his hands perfectly clearly. Quickly, he reached out for the glassy obstruction in front of him, to find that it was an actual barrier; too strong to be normal glass, which encircled him, and covered him from above. A slight breeze was coming into his glass-like chamber from below, which, when he looked down, he discovered was entering through a series of tiny holes in a metal vent under his very feet. The whole thing felt absurd and strange, and for a moment, Mark wondered if he'd been captured by some of the aliens, who'd caused the "deadline."<p>

However, as Mark began to look through the transparent barrier, his expectations were discarded. All around him, there were metal walls and control panels, sometimes with glass over them. There were also several glass panels, with shining images behind them, which were divided into different-colored sections, with words on them, like "oxygen," "pressure" and "emergency."

Throughout the whole room, men and women in blue and red jumpsuits walked back and forth, or stopped to monitor one of the panels or glass surfaces. They'd sometimes pause to talk, but they all seemed to be very busy, and through it all, there was a sense that their mission was a very important one.

However, as Mark turned to look in the other direction, he saw something truly intimidating. On one side of the room, there was a platform, up a set of stairs, which went up almost eight feet, and at the top of that platform, there were several more light-panels, or "screens" as Mark soon learned to call them, displaying images of moving people and vehicles. In front of the images, facing them, was a huge chair, which must have been at least six feet tall, from the bottom of the chair, to the top of its back. Mark swallowed as he looked up at that chair, because he knew that the person sitting there was someone of great authority and importance, but suddenly, a light on one of the screens flickered, and the chair spun around. The sight that Mark saw then almost made him laugh.

The inhabitant of the chair was a middle-aged woman, wearing a blue jumpsuit with a while coat over that, which went all the way down past her knees, though it wasn't buttoned up in the front. A pair of large spectacles rested on her abnormally-big nose, and her long, black hair covered her shoulders. However, what had struck Mark so much, at first, was how small she was. She was certainly less than five feet tall, though how tall she was, exactly, he couldn't be sure. Also, she was smiling; a big, broad smile, like someone who's discovered a great treasure, and is eager to share it with everyone. However, something about the look in her eyes, and the frankly intimidating surroundings, gave Mark a distinct sense that, perhaps, he should still be afraid of her.

Soon enough, bracing her hands against the sides of the armrests; the only part of them that she could reach, the woman hopped off the chair and started down the stairs, watching Mark attentively as she did so. Soon, she was standing directly opposite him, outside of his enclosure, and after the two had spent several uncomfortable seconds looking at one another, Mark finally decided to break the silence.

"Can you hear what I'm saying out there?"

The woman's only reply was to nod her smiling head.

"Would you let me out of here, please?"

Just then, however, she spoke, and Mark was amazed to hear her high-pitched, squeaky voice coming out of the vent on the floor.

"Well, first thing's first. My name is Dr. Stephanie Dobson. What's yours?"

Mark was flabbergasted by the nature of that question, and by the way in which she asked it, as though she was more concerned with simple manners, and less concerned with the fact that she'd taken a man prisoner. Still, he decided to reply to her, using the name he'd gone by, while he'd been a member of Jake's gang.

"Mark Lightley."

"Well, that's a good start, I guess." Dobson replied, brushing her hair off of her left shoulder in a casual way, "I suppose I don't need to ask why you came here. You're here because we still have technology, and you don't. In fact, this is one of only four or five big technology capitals that still exist in the world. Am I right?"

"Yes." Mark replied quickly, "I need your..."

"My secrets aren't for sale." Dobson said, just as casually as she had her last remark, "Of course, if what you want is a reliable source of power for my inventions, you'll mainly find it here. However, nothing's for free, of course. You must know that by now. There's always a price, in exchange for these things. If you want to live here, you've got to..."

However, Dobson had interrupted Mark once, and still wasn't letting him out, and he found both of those things very upsetting. That was why, at that point, he interrupted her angrily.

"No! You don't understand! I have no intention of living here!"

For a moment, Dobson stopped, her apparently-prepared speech dying in mid-air. Then, she looked back up at him again, squinting for a moment or two, then remarking, "This has something to do with where you got those clothes, doesn't it? You're here on behalf of some old-style weaver or something."

Mark looked down at his coat briefly, feeling a little insulted by her remarks, but soon, he shook his head.

"No." Mark replied, "I came here for my own reasons. You're right about one thing. I need the help of your machines and your technology, but not to survive."

At that point, Dobson blinked a few times with a confused look on her face, before her smile began to grow even broader.

"Oh, my." she gasped, "Oh, my! Don't tell me... Don't tell me you're a scientist!"

Dobson looked positively ecstatic by that point, and for a moment, Mark looked around again, but the other men and women around his enclosure were all staring at him by that point, and one or two even seemed to be shuddering, which put even more fear into his heart.

"Well, yes. A doctor of physics."

At that point, Dobson gave a sound that Mark could only identify as a squeak of excitement, and started waving her arms up and down. However, when five seconds passed, and nothing happened, she turned to look at one young man in a blue jumpsuit, off in one corner, and barked, "That means open it, idiot!"

"R-right!" the man gasped, and soon, the glass seemed to split open on the top, dividing into four quadrants, and splitting apart, to let Mark out. He took the opportunity quickly, exiting on the same side as Dobson, which made a few of the other nearby people wince again. However, soon, the glass sections had retracted into the floor, and Dobson had grabbed Mark's left hand, and was yanking it up and down, with what must have been her full, natural strength.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mister Lightley." Dobson exclaimed, "I'm a doctor of physics myself, you see. Well, come on. This way. Let's talk about this a little more, in private."

Within seconds, Dobson had walked over to one of the walls, and as she approached it, to Mark's amazement, it seemed to just slide to one side, revealing a doorway. She almost skipped through it, like a child at play, and Mark, sparing only a second to glance back at the worried-looking men and women in the jumpsuits, followed her.

* * *

><p>Dobson didn't say another word to Mark until the two of them had gone down three hallways, and entered another hidden door, which lead into a pretty large and well-decorated office. In appearance, though, it seemed to be about halfway between an office and a lounge. There was a desk on one side, with a big chair, and working materials on top of it, along with a smooth screen, connected to a selection of buttons. Behind the desk were more screens, acting in place of windows, by showing images of bright, sunny skies, over a large city in the daytime. To the right, as he entered, Mark saw a box, like the one that Jake had had, but much larger; taller than a man, which was probably used to store food, and to his right, there were two small couches. About six comfortable-looking chairs were arranged around the desk, with plenty of space between them for a person to get through. It looked like the kind of room, the time traveler thought, that a man like Jake and his kids could have lived in very comfortably.<p>

"Now, then." Dobson said, stepping past the group of chairs, and taking her seat behind the desk, which almost came up to her shoulders when she was sitting down, "Most newcomers just want to live in a place with technology, and I can't blame them, but you don't. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. I have at least three people who work here, but don't want to live here. That's fine. I understand it's hard for some people. So, why don't you tell me what you're trying to accomplish, and I'll tell you what you need to do, to get my help, alright?"

It sounded as though Dobson was used to dealing with scientists, and other people who had concrete goals and specific fields of study, because after only a short greeting, she was right down to business, but Mark hadn't forgotten that she'd had him trapped in a glass tube until just a minute or so before, so there was a large part of him that warned him not to trust Dobson too much.

"I've been experimenting with a very different kind of vehicle." Mark began, "A machine to let its occupant travel through multiple dimensions. I'd even finished a prototype, but it wouldn't work without power, and it was disassembled by a gang and stolen from me."

"Well, you can be sure that won't happen here." Dobson replied, "We banish robbers to the great plains outside of the city, where there's no power. I'll be frank, Mister Lightley. Your project sounds very interesting, and I'd like to back you up on this, if you can make it work. Could you have blueprints ready within twenty-four hours?"

For a moment, Mark wasn't sure what to say, but at last, he replied, "Well, I didn't bring any with me, and I'm afraid I don't have the materials needed to make a blueprint for..."

"Oh, don't worry about that." Dobson replied, chuckling a little, "I'll give you what you need. I'm just asking if you think you can finish a blueprint in a day. Do you remember all the measurements and materials that you used in your prototype?"

"Of course." Mark replied, perhaps a bit too quickly, "I could recite them in my sleep, but..."

"Excellent!" Dobson exclaimed, rubbing her hands together, "Now, there are a few formalities, of course. I'll want to look over your blueprints before you try to have anything designed, and of course, none of the secrets of your machine should leave Hansfield until I tell you it's alright. I assume that's acceptable."

Indeed, she did seem to have assumed that, since she hadn't bothered to wait for him to reply with a yes or a no, and that told Mark Lightley volumes. She was used to people accepting her terms, which meant that all of their breakthroughs remained in Hansfield, for the most part, and were little or no use to people outside of her isolated city-state. More than anything else that Dobson had done or said up to that point, Dr. Lightley found that to be evidence against her. She let the people of the outside world languish under the rule of gangs and robbers, protecting herself with her own technology. Still, he knew that if he wanted a new time machine, and one that would work without electricity, he'd need to agree to her terms. If it all worked out, the secrets of his machine wouldn't become known outside of Hansfield anyway.

* * *

><p>Mark had been amazed by the labs and offices that he'd been given access to, to work on his project. The machines that were used by Dobson and her team of scientists to make blueprints alone were incredibly-advanced; so much so, that he needed a few hours to get used to using them. However, once he'd managed that, he found that designing an accurate blueprint of the time machine had only taken about three more hours, and it was only then that he paused, not sure what to do next.<p>

Of course, the original plan had been to show those blueprints to Dobson, but as he took a few moments to think it over, he realized that he didn't trust Dobson; certainly not enough to feel safe, when he thought about her acquiring the secrets of time travel. At last, he looked over his blueprints one last time, until he reached the main frequency switch, which received temporal frequency information from the crystalline formation in back, interpreting it into instructions when the machine was activated. It was an essential function of the time machine, and unless it was set just right, it wouldn't work.

Slowly, thinking his decision over, Mark changed the value by five degrees. It wasn't much of a difference, but it was just enough to mean the difference between a useless device and a working time machine, and yet, it was something that he could fix in person, once Dobson had made him an actual, working model. In short, he could escape into the past, leaving behind only faulty blueprints, which she would be hard pressed to fix, unless she already understood their secrets. In a few seconds more, he'd sent the blueprints to her office by thermal transmission, and to his amazement, he received a reply from her within five minutes.

Without warning, the words "Is this really your final prototype design?" flashed across his screen, and for a moment, he was terrified that she might have already noticed the flaw in his blueprints, but nevertheless, he replied, "Yes," and in thirty more seconds, was relieved by the next message that he received.

"I assume you don't mind if I add one or two things. It won't make a very good vehicle if it doesn't have wheels, wings, blades, jets or a motor."

Of course, Mark had been delighted by the idea, and no more than a day later, he'd been invited to personally oversee the production process. He'd watched in amazement, from behind a pane of tempered glass, as solid blocks of raw materials had just seemed to melt away, in a closed-off room nearby, with parts for his machine sprouting up in their place.

"It's advanced, nanomachine technology." Dobson had explained, watching his astonished expression, "Microscopic robots, which take apart raw materials, and put them back together in any shape that I program them for. There are thousands of them in there, too small to see. They take a while to finish, but they do the job right, and they're still quicker and less expensive to use than a normal factory."

Then, as the last of the parts had been assembled, later that same day, Mark had watched a teach of people, working with large and powerful-looking vehicles, assembling his machine, according to the design that he and Dobson had agreed on. In fact, Mark was amazed, as the last piece was fitted into place, just how much it resembled the machine that he'd designed in his own house back home.

"Everything's just as I said it would be." Dobson said at last, as the assembling vehicles backed away, and she lead Mark towards it with a smile. Soon, she'd begun to point to the controls at the front of the machine, several of which were for new things, "These buttons control your means of propulsion. This will release wheels from the bottom, this one helecopter blades from the top, and wings from the sides, and that one will switch to jet propulsion. These controls here shift the plates on the outside of the vehicle, to make it safe and efficient when traveling either on the ocean, or in space, and..."

At that point, Dobson flipped open a small compartment, off to one side of the machine, and there, a small screen became visible, along with a tiny selection of letter keys, called a "keyboard," and a small device for recording voice commands, which Dobson had called a "microphone."

"This computer can be used as a more effectient control method for your machine, if you decide to use it, as well as make, store and display data, pictures, music, voices, videos... Well, you know. The things that computers do. All of that, plus, it runs primarily on thermal energy pellets, like all the machines of Hansfield, although this one has regular circuits too, just in case electric power is restored someday. If that ever happens, you can use this red switch, here, near the bottom, to switch between thermal and electric power."

"It's magnificent." Mark Lightley said in delight and amazement, "Better than I imagined. Do you mind if I test it out?"

"Well, it's your baby." Dobson replied with a wink, stepping off to one side as Mark climbed into one of the two seats that Dobson had put in his machine; the one with all of the controls in front of it. Taking a deep breath, as well as a few moments to memorize where all the controls were, Mark reached back for the frequency switch, rotating it five degrees, and locking it into place. Dobson looked a bit curious as she saw him do that, but it was too late for her to do anything about it. In seconds, Mark had powered up the machine, and rotated the time dials on the front panel, turning them back...

* * *

><p>At that point, Mark paused in his story. Frankenstein still seemed to be following the tale, and looked more interested than ever, but he'd gotten to his feet, and moved to leave the room, saying "I'll be back in a moment." Soon, he was gone, and Mark was beginning to wonder whether he should leave at that point; accept that the whole discussion was a lost cause. After all, for all he knew, Frankenstein had left to contact an asylum. However, his fears were unfounded. Soon, the brilliant biologist had returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses.<p>

"I could use some," Frankenstein explained as he took his seat again, putting one glass down in front of himself, and the other in front of Mark, "and given how long you've been talking, your throat is probably even drier than mine."

Mark accepted the wine gratefully, though he waited for Frankenstein to drink first, before taking any himself. It was very good wine; probably having belonged to Victor's family for quite some time, although Dr. Lightley didn't know enough about wines to be sure when or where it had been made. The taste also managed to wake him up just a little, and after only three small sips, almost thirty seconds apart from each other, he felt that he could continue his story.

"I never saw Dobson again after that." Mark explained, "Also, all thought of going back to my own time had vanished from my mind. Suddenly, I knew something about the future, which I suppose I hadn't realized before, during my experiences with the morlocks. I knew that the human race would suffer a horrible catastrophe in the year 2010 AD, and I'd seen how people lived after that catastrophe. I'd seen it all firsthand, except for the event itself, so..."

"So you went to October 30th, 2010 AD, to witness the deadline." Frankenstein correctly guessed, drawing a hesitant nod from Lightley, "Very risky, but I admit, it's what I would have done."

"Yes." Lightley replied, "I had to see it for myself. I stopped my machine outside of Hansfield, and watched it happen. Bright lights were coming from the houses and lamps of that town. It seemed like every street had several, but then suddenly, all at once, they all went out, just like that. A short time later, I saw people leaving their houses to talk with each other, then split up into groups, to go investigating the neighborhood. By the end of three hours, there were shouts of worry and confusion coming from that town, as people tried to make sense of it, but I could tell that their worries would only grow, as more time passed, and the power refused to reactivate. I hadn't learned much from watching it happen, however, so I traveled into the future again, to the year 2015 AD; ten years before my previous experiences, and I went looking for information. That time, I got lucky."

* * *

><p>Mark cringed as he swerved his machine in mid-air, trying his best to gain some altitude, or find some other way to evade the gang of horsemen, who were attacking him with their weapons. Some of those weapons seemed to be pistols of various types, while others were bows and arrows, but in either case, it would be bad if any of them hit the crystal on his machine. He kept having to swerve the machine from side to side, to avoid the shots, and worse yet, they seemed to be trying to flank him from either side as he moved. At least one of them had a rope too.<p>

Mark knew that the machine that he was riding was powerful enough to escape those marauders, but he hadn't had enough time to practice maneuvering with it, so in a stressful situation like that one, he was finding that his options were limited. He could go looking for the right controls, but that would take time, which meant that he'd need to take his eyes off his attackers, and he didn't dare to do that.

However, just then, he noticed that two of the horses were riding towards the others, scattering them in all directions. At first, he thought that their group was getting into a fight, but when he took another look, he saw that those two horses were connected to each other, and were pulling something behind them. Neither of them had a rider either, which he should have found strange by itself. It was such an odd situation, that at first, Mark didn't even recognize that he'd been saved by a real chariot.

The young man in the chariot acted fast, after breaking the ranks of the marauders, pulling a pistol out from a sack that hung at his side, and letting off three rounds into the midst of them, knocking one of them from his horse, and sending the others into a panic. Mark didn't see the rest of what happened down there, because the stranger had bought him enough time to find the jet controls, and shoot about fifty feet straight up, out of reach of his attackers. It wasn't until he'd circled around the area a couple of times and descended towards the scene of combat from the north, that he discovered that the young man in the chariot had, fortunately, survived, and most of the horsemen had fled in multiple directions.

Slowly, Mark moved the time machine towards the ground, pushed the button to bring out the wheels, and landed, then turned off the machine, looking over at the man who'd helped him. That was the first time he got a really good look at him. The man was at least twenty; probably more like twenty-two or twenty-three. He had black hair and very finely-woven clothes, in dark shades of blue and green. His chariot was made of wood, and was the same shade of brown as the horses that drew it. He also had a very curious expression on his face, which Mark could perfectly understand. After all, the power was supposed to be out in that time period, and he'd just been using his jets to fly. It would require an explanation of some kind.

As Mark dismounted from his machine, sure enough, the young man said "Excuse me, sir! That machine of yours..."

"Yes." Mark noted, "It's designed to run on thermal energy; completely free of electricity."

"That's amazing." the man replied, stepping forward, to run one hand along the smooth, metallic side of the time machine. Then, in just another moment, he'd offered his hand to Mark to shake, and Mark had gladly taken it.

"Calvin Conroy." the man said.

"Mark Lightley." Mark said back, and soon, the two had gotten to talking a little; mostly about speculations on what the future would hold.

* * *

><p>Before long, Conroy had asked Mark if he was hungry or thirsty, and although Mark didn't feel comfortable taking the man's food, it was clear that he wanted to offer it. In the end, he agreed, and they set off for the small house, which Conroy called his home. Unlike Jake's cabin, it was painted light blue, although the paint was old, and cracking in a few places. Conroy smiled as he stuck his key into the front door and lead Mark inside.<p>

"This house belonged to my parents, before the deadline." Conroy explained, "They died shortly after that, but not from marauders like those. It was an accident. They died as a result of a panicked mob."

"I'm sorry." Mark said, not sure what else to say.

"Thank you." Conroy replied, "It was certainly horrible, but things like that sometimes happened, even before the deadline. In any case, they didn't leave a hard copy of any will, but as I was their only son, the house became mine. Things have gotten worse since then, of course, but I can handle myself, and if things ever get bad enough that I have to move, then I'll move. Just to give you some idea, though, that group of horsemen are the biggest band of marauders that I've seen in years."

"Yes, me too." Mark truthfully replied.

Soon, Conroy had opened up a large, smooth box in one room of the house, which had a number of vegetables in it, as well as some ice, and some bottles.

"There's a scientist to the north of here, who found a way to make ice without using electricity, or shipping it in from the polar areas." Conroy explained. "He's made a fortune off of his discovery, and single-handedly revived the icebox. If you haven't gotten in contact with him yet, or with one of his people, you might want to. His name's Jason Mattheson."

"I'll be sure to look into that." Mark replied, as Conroy reached for one of the cabinets in that room, removing a loaf of bread, and began to cut it with a large knife, that he had in one of the drawers.

"So, what brings you way out here?" Conroy asked, smiling as he arranged the bread on a plate, and put it on the table in the middle of the room, "You're a scientist, I can see, but mostly, scientists do their work in the cities. At least, that's how it's been for the last few years."

"I actually just came from a city in Montana," Mark replied, "but I was only really working there for about a day. The truth is, I'm doing something of... well, a research project on the deadline."

Conroy's face brightened up when Mark said that, and soon, he commented, "I think I can help you with that, but we should finish eating first. It's not good to do research on an empty stomach, if you can help it."

Then, without another word, Conroy folded his hands on the table, and soon, the two of them were saying grace together, each with thoughts of the helplessness and mortality of man running through their heads.


	4. Chapter 4: The Frankenstein Hunt

Chapter 4: The Frankenstein Hunt

* * *

><p>As soon as Mark and Conroy had finished lunch, the chariot-driver lead his guest upstairs, where there were a few extra rooms. The first room on the right was filled with bookcases and drawers, which indicated that either Conroy himself, or one of his parents, had been a committed reader. The books covered a wide range of topics, from baking and wilderness survival, through history and basic physics. When Conroy opened one of the drawers, Mark saw that they were filled with papers, typed out and sorted by topic. Conroy sifted through them for a few minutes, until finally, he found the one that he'd apparently been looking for. Soon, he'd handed it to Mark, who started to look it over. Sure enough, it contained a lot of information that was new to him, and in particular, he was surprised to see Dobsons name in one of the paragraphs, and to realize that her role in the post-deadline events had been greater than he'd ever suspected.<p>

"The following information," the paper read, "comes from Sister Matsuda, who claims to have heard it from the lips of the Gill-Man, who was personally involved in the efforts to save the planet Earth after the deadline. The deadline, as it's called, was the result of an alien being, interfering with the flow of electricity, everywhere on Earth. The being was a robot named Gort, acting according to its programming. On October 30th, 2010, Gort used an alien device to cut all the power on Earth. His reasoning is unclear, but the United Kingdoms manned mission to Mars, which took place on that day, is believed to have had something to do with it."

"Gort visited Earth once before, during the 1950s, when he was accompanied by the alien Klaatu. At that time, a similar thing was done to Earth's power, with only a few exceptions. Klaatu left mankind with a warning, that if they extended their violence to other worlds, grave consequences would result."

"In response to the global loss of power, a team of monsters was assembled, consisting of Vlad Tepes Dracula, Adam Frankenstein, Imhotep, a werewolf named Barry Hammerson, a scientist named Stephanie Dobson, Nancy Archer, King Kong and the Gill-Man himself. They were able to prevent Gort from causing any further harm to planet Earth, and obtained the device that he'd been using to cut global power. Adam Frankenstein took possession of the device after the fight was over, but for some reason he decided not to restore power with it. To this day, many people consider him more responsible than anyone else, for the difficulties and struggles that human beings have suffered through in the continuing global blackout. However, his whereabouts are unknown."

"I'd heard of Adam Frankenstein," Mark admitted, putting down the paper as he finished reading, "but I thought he was just an urban legend."

"Lots of people thought that." Conroy said, "When times are good and prosperous, it's easier to talk about monsters as though they're fairy tales, but monsters have actually been very common over the last couple of hundred years, and especially in the twentieth century. The last fifty years, however, have been an especially big time for monsters. New creatures have appeared almost every month, though again, most people just dismissed the stories as legends or rumors."

"But you didn't."

"Not after the deadline. At that point, it was pretty clear that monsters were a real factor in our lives, so I went looking for books on the subject, and I found one that talked about the recorded history of ghost and monster activity. It was very comprehensive. It even cited sources. That convinced me that the man knew what he was talking about."

"It sounds like good reading." Mark replied, interested in hearing more, "May I see it?"

Conroy had already put his hand on one of the bookshelves, however, before Mark even asked that question, and in a moment, he handed a thick book to his new friend, who took a few seconds to look it over. The front cover showed a lot of ghosts, gravitating around the planet Earth, and the title was curiously academic-sounding. "Confirmed Paranormal Encounters Throughout History, by Dr. Ray Stantz."

As Mark spent a moment flipping through the pages, he found that it was written very much like the kinds of normal, academic textbooks that he was used to reading on physics and temporal theory, except that it was about zombies, monsters, and especially ghosts. There was also a preface, where Dr. Stantz outlined the specific type of philosophical approach that he used to determine which events were sufficiently-supported, and which were probably just stories, made up by some attention seeker. It all seemed very professional.

"Well, thank you for the food, and for all this information." Mark said, holding the book in both hands, but before he even had time to ask, Conroy answered the question that he'd been about to voice.

"Yes, you can borrow that book. Keep it for as long as you want. I have a friend, who can get me another copy if I need one."

Once again, Mark thanked Conroy very much for his help, and for the book, and after talking for a few more minutes, the two parted ways, and Mark set his machine for another time; the publication date of the book. June 13th, 1996.

* * *

><p>"You went to visit Dr. Stantz, then." Frankenstein guessed, but in that case, his guess was only partly right.<p>

"I did go to visit Dr. Stantz," Mark replied, "but not immediately. First, I spent some time in local libraries, reading the book. I also made some money for myself, by drawing up blueprints for toys, on commission at a local place of business, in New York. The executives modified some of them, but I didn't really care, as long as I was paid. I got my money, and used it to buy what I needed to eat and drink, locking what was left in my compartment in the time machine. It took me a few weeks to finish reading the book, and even once I was finished with it, I decided to keep it for a while longer, as a reference text. After all, I had the freedom to keep it for as long as I wanted, and still return it to its original owner after only a little time had passed."

* * *

><p>Mark found Dr. Stantz at his office in New York City, in a relatively-small building, which seemed to be a renovated, old-style fire department. However, the sign outside didn't say anything about fires. Instead, it read, strangely, "Ghostbusters."<p>

After spending only a few moments talking to Dr. Stantz' secretary; Janine, Mark was let into his office, where he found a mid-height, dark-haired man with a wide chin, dressed in a tan jumpsuit with his last name written on it in red letters, over one side of his chest. He was sitting in a chair behind his desk, talking into what must have been a telephone of some kind, although Mark had never seen one so advanced before. It seemed to be able to call multiple people at the same time, and switch between then, because that was what Dr. Stantz was doing when he entered.

"Tell team six they've got free plane tickets to Seattle." Dr. Stantz said into the telephone, "Yup. Another old, haunted mansion deal. Well, that's your job. Figure out if it's the real deal. He said if it's not, he'll eat the price of the round trip tickets. Great. See you soon."

Then, Dr. Stantz pushed another button on his phone, and switched to a new topic of discussion.

"Yes, I have a visiter, so I need to make this quick. Can we have team three drive a dozen or so miles south, and check on the mansion there? Some haunted dollhouse or something supposedly torched the place, and we should have a team check it out, just to make sure there's no residual spectral readings. Right. See you."

Then, Dr. Stantz hung up the telephone and looked up to face his guest. The bright, cheery smile on his face was very disarming, and when he shook Marks hand, there was a genuine warmth there, which, in Mark's experience, was rare in the people of that city, who often didn't even look at one another. Dr. Stantz was different.

"Pleased to meet you. Ray Stantz." the man in the tan uniform said.

"Mark Lightley." Mark said, perhaps too quickly, because the named seemed to draw a look of recognition to the man's face, as though he'd heard of Mark somewhere before. Still, Dr. Stantz didn't bother to mention his thoughts on the subject, so Mark didn't ask him about them.

"So what's the problem?" Dr. Stantz asked, "Ghost trouble?"

"Actually, no." Mark said, accepting a chair that Dr. Stantz offered to him; one of two in front of his desk, "At least, I don't think so. I'd like to talk to you about something you wrote in your book."

Dr. Stantz had been about to light a cigarette for himself, with what looked like a miniature, handheld, gas-lighter, but when he heard Mark say that, he put both the cigarette and the lighter down, and took a seat behind the desk, his smile, if possible, even broader than it had been before.

"It's wild stuff, isn't it?" Dr. Stantz asked, "I tell you, aside from actual ghostbusting, nothing's got quite the thrill that researching the paranormal's got. I could talk about it for days."

"Good." Mark said, finding that Dr. Stantz' smile was infectious, in spite of the many tragic things he'd seen recently, "I wanted to ask you about Adam Frankenstein."

"Lots of folks think Frankenstein's just some myth, or a horror story, written to spook people," Stantz began, "but actually, there's plenty of evidence that Frankenstein really existed. I was able to track down the family records of Victor Frankenstein, and newspaper clippings of his tragic disappearance. There were even footprints found near his house at the time, which appeared in a police report; big footprints. Judging by the length of his stride, the police figured the man who made those footprints had to be about eight feet tall. It all confirms Captain Walton's story backwards and forwards."

"Yes, you said that in your book." Mark replied, "I suppose I'm just curious about when it happened. Do you have any idea what year the doctor began his experiments, or even what day?"

However, that set Dr. Stantz thinking, and after a few moments spent in thought, he said, "Well, Captain Walton reported what happened late in 1818, after returning from his voyage. The dates on his letters were forgeries, added later to make them look more valuable, you see. That means Victor Frankenstein probably died in about early to mid 1818, and the creature was probably made about five or six months before that, in late 1817, or thereabouts. Still, a discovery like that must have taken years to perfect. I'd say Victor probably started work sometime between 1808 and 1815. Sorry. I wish I could be more specific, but that's still basically a guess. I can't prove it's true. That's why I didn't put it in the book."

It wasn't the kind of answer that satisfied Mark, but it would, he thought, have to do, to start with. Thanking Dr. Stantz for his time, he left that building, and at the very least, it seemed that he was getting closer to the root of the problem.

* * *

><p>"I went to 1814, to research you and your experiments, and eventually found some of your notes, which were dated 1810." Mark explained, "I came back to this point in time to meet you during your initial experiments, and found you with that arm you dug up. There's more to the story, of course, but that should help explain who I am, and why I'm here."<p>

Another man might have thought the whole thing was rubbish; might have told Mark that it had been an amusing story, and asked him to leave, but not Victor Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein leaned back in his chair, looking grave, as though pondering what had just been said with great caution, before he finally spoke.

"There are a couple of points on which I would like further clarification." Frankenstein noted, "First, you've been using a number of terms that I don't recognize, such as 'telephone.' Please explain that."

Mark was a little surprised by that at first, but then again, it made sense that Frankenstein wouldn't have heard of those things, living in the early 1800s.

"The telephone is an electric machine, which uses wires to allow people to communicate with each other from great distances away." Mark explained, "It won't be patented for another sixty-six years, though."

Frankenstein nodded slowly as he processed the new information, then continued.

"I'd also like to know how, exactly, your last statement could possibly be true. After we met tonight, you came in here, and that was it. There's nothing more to tell. How could there be?"

That, however, was when the time traveler took a deep breath, and took another sip from his wine glass, because by asking that question, Frankenstein had opened up a whole new can of worms.

"I hope you'll bear with me on this," Mark said sadly, fully expecting that Dr. Frankenstein would do no such thing, in spite of how much he'd been willing to believe up to that point, "because this part of the story is perhaps the strangest and hardest to accept. You see, my original plan was to attack you, and hopefully injure you enough to prevent your experiments from succeeding, but it didn't fall through. I rushed at you with both fists bared, but in response, you... Well, you pulled out the arm you'd found. Probably hoping to use it as a weapon. Indeed, you did use it that way, although you couldn't have realized how powerful a weapon it was. You swung it at me twice, so that I was forced to back off, running to the shed in the corner of the graveyard, and grabbing the shovel I found there. It was the only weapon within reach, and I wasn't ready to give up, but when I attacked you again, you tried to use the arm to knock the shovel out of my hands, which resulted in the two weapons stopping in mid-swing, with the hand of the arm right in front of my face."

"Then, something else happened, which I still can't explain. The hand began to glow blue, and in a moment, I felt a painful, jolting sensation, as though I were experiencing a powerful electric shock, as bright flashes of light traveled out of the arm and into my body with a popping noise. I only experienced the sensation for a few moments before blacking out, but it was clear that my attempt to change the past had been thwarted."

For a moment, Mark looked up, to see that Frankenstein was still watching him, but with a slightly skeptical look in his face for the first time since their discussion had begun.

"You're right." Frankenstein replied, "That is hard to accept. I don't remember doing any of that. Are you trying to tell me that my own memories are in error?"

"No, your memories are fine." Mark replied, "It's just that... Well, things are different now, because I went back and..."

For a moment, Mark paused, as though unsure of just how to explain it, but finally, he took another sip of the wine and after stopping to think for a moment, said, "Why don't I just tell you the rest of the story? It'll take longer, but when I'm done, you'll understand why I said that just now."

* * *

><p>Mark was stunned as he woke up, finding that it was already morning, and Frankenstein was gone. For a moment, the time traveler got the distinct impression that he'd made a serious mistake, and that his approach had been foolish and shortsighted. Ultimately, he hadn't succeeded in changing anything. Still, there had to be some way to stop Adam Frankenstein from perpetuating the deadline.<p>

Mark's legs still felt wobbly as he slowly righted himself and stumbled back towards the spot, behind one of the mausoleums, where he'd hidden his time machine. He'd hoped not to even need to deal with the issue of somehow defeating Adam Frankenstein after he was created, but at the very least, he thought, he could investigate a few of the other times when the creatures life had been in real danger.

* * *

><p>Fortunately, Mark had had the chance he needed to read up on Adam Frankenstein and the many hard and unfortunate events that had taken place over the course of his life, and he'd memorized several key dates which, in his mind, were important. The first thing that he needed, however, was a weapon sufficient to hurt the creature. It would probably be too much to hope that a frontal attack would do the job effectively, but he might be able to interfere at some important moment; prevent things from going Adam's way during some dangerous event. In fact, he thought, it might be the only hope left for humanity.<p>

After buying a pretty advanced pistol from the year 2009 AD, as well as several dozen rounds of ammunition, Mark re-entered his time machine, and set the dials, feeling it lurch underneath him, as the buildings changed shape, growing smaller all around him. At the same time, the flight blades and jets on his machine, as well as its wings emerged, and soon, he was soaring through the air, towards a new time and place; March 5th, 1943.

* * *

><p>As Marks machine landed on the grass in a new time period, he could see some lights, streaming out, past the outer buildings of a small, American village, and he could hear some singing going on, as he synced himself up with the normal flow of time. It wasn't a song he recognized, but it sounded cheerful, and soon, he'd put his gun into the pocket of his coat, which was deep enough to hide it from view, and headed towards the village, as the singing increased in volume. One voice seemed to have risen above most of the others, singing praise for a winemaker, and as Mark rounded a corner, entering the village square, he smiled at the sight. It was a wine festival of some kind. People everywhere were dancing, moving barrels and provisions this way and that, and generally celebrating the good providence, which had lead them to have so much to be happy over. It was such a joyful sight, that the only thing that kept Mark from joining in, was the dire knowledge that he had a mission to complete, and that at any point, their celebration was about to be interrupted.<p>

Indeed, Mark winced as he heard the sounds of furious shouting from the other side of the town square. He turned to look, and there, in the flesh, was Larry Talbot, with both fists raised in the air, shouting at another man, who was wearing a large-brimmed hat. He, and most of the other people who'd been singing looked taken aback by Talbots reaction, and were doing their best to back away. Mark had no intention of trying to interfere with that exchange, but he knew what was going to happen next. In a few moments, a man named Dr. Mannering, pursuing Talbot, would confront him, and strike a deal with him. Then, all Mark had to do was follow them back to the lab, where Mannering had plans to perform an experiment on the recently-recovered monster of Frankenstein.

* * *

><p>Soon, Mark had arrived outside of the lab, where an experiment was to take place. He'd heard the story before. Larry Talbot; a werewolf, was looking for some means of permanently ending his own life, to free himself from his curse for good. He'd recently uncovered the body of Adam Frankenstein, and was hoping that the brilliant discoveries of Victor might be able to fulfill his wish. Dr. Mannering would try to accomplish that, with the help of Victor's notes, but in the process, he was going to make a horrible mistake, and that was when Mark planned to step in.<p>

Mark watched the whole thing unfold before his eyes. Dr. Mannering was standind on a raised platform, working some controls, with Talbot and Adam down below, tied to platforms, and then, in that moment, when the Doctor made the decision to fully revive the monster of Frankenstein; eager to see what he could do at full strength, Mark took aim through a window with one arm, and fired, hoping to hit the monster before Mannering could finish his experiment.

Three of the four heads in that room turned in the direction of the gunshot noise at once, and Mark felt as though his whole arm was being crushed as the gun flew from his hand, landing on the grass outside. Mark felt like kicking himself, because that really had been all his fault. He should have known better than to try to use firearms to solve his problem, without ever firing one before; even in practice. The force of the gunshot had been much stronger than he'd expected. If he'd had it to do over again, he would have held it with both hands, instead of just one, but his whole arm was aching all over from the impact, and he was sure he'd missed his target. Quickly grabbing the gun from where it had fallen with his other arm, Mark ran back to his time machine, just as the clouds moved away from the moon, revealing it to be full.

Before the monster of Frankenstein or the Wolfman could take any further notice of him, Mark started up his machine, traveling further back in time. He'd made two attempts on the life of Adam Frankenstein so far, and both had failed. If he failed a third time, he wasn't sure what else he could try.

* * *

><p>Tracking down the right date and time had been fairly easy. Figuring out the exact place was a little harder; especially since it was very, very cold there. Still, in the end, Mark found, to his relief, that the icy cold of the arctic on April 20th, 1818 made no impact on the functions of his time machine, or on its ability to fly. Staying just slightly out of phase with the normal flow of time, Mark flew in over the ice, scanning the area for any sight of Captain Walton's ship; the very ship on which Victor Frankenstein had met his death, and sure enough, he eventually found it, landing his machine with a clunk on the deck.<p>

There was alarmed shouting from the sailors as Mark dismounted from his time machine, pulling his coat around himself, and once again slipping his pistol into his pocket. However, when one of the sailors stepped into his path, Mark decided that perhaps, the best approach would be to try to explain himself. Brute force hadn't worked during his last two attempts, and it wasn't likely to work there, when he was surrounded by so many powerful-looking men.

"I'm sorry if my machine alarmed you gentlemen," Mark said cautiously, "but I'm looking for Victor Frankenstein, and I've heard he was here."

"He's 'ere, alright." One sailor replied quickly, stepping forward, "You a friend of 'is?"

"An acquaintance." Mark replied, "He'll know me by sight, though."

"Good enough." another sailor, who seemed to be the first mate, replied, "Now, mister, it's not right to board another man's ship in your flying machines, or what have you, without leave. Nevertheless, I'll overlook this, if you can be of some use."

"Well, I'll be happy to help in any way I can." Mark replied, already starting to feel oppressively cold.

"That fellow you were talking about; Dr. Frankenstein. He's down below, and he keeps trying to push us to go on; further and further north. Says he's chasing some blasted monster or some such. I don't think the Captain will listen to him for much longer as things stand. It's getting too dangerous, and too cold to stay out in these waters, no matter who says so. You know how it is. Still, things might go a bit smoother if you could talk some sense into the chap. Just give it your best shot. You won't be blamed if you've no more luck in convincing him than the rest of us."

"Alright." Mark replied, "That's fair. Just show me where he is, and I'll do my best."

Soon, the sailor was leading Mark into the ship, through hallways, and finally, he opened the door of a cabin, and there was Victor, looking frantically towards the door, and clutching a gun in one hand, from the place where he sat.

"Who are you?" Victor asked angrily, not recognizing his visitor at first, because of the poor light, and the fact that, for him, it had been years since they'd last met.

"Doctor!" Mark exclaimed, "Control yourself! Put down that gun. I'm not going to attack you. Not this time, at any rate."

Then, with those words, Mark decided to take a chance, and he stepped into the room, his face revealed in the meager light, coming in through the window. For a moment, Frankenstein still looked confused, but suddenly, a look of recognition and horror spread across his face.

"You!" he exclaimed, dropping his gun to the floor, and putting both hands over his mouth, "You knew, didn't you?! You knew how all of this would turn out for me! That's why you tried to harm me, while I was doing my research, isn't it?"

Mark didn't smile, but inwardly, he was pleased by Victor's realization. It meant that he wouldn't need to explain quite as much.

"Yes." Mark replied, "I knew. The monster, the murders, the death of your wife, your own mission to find and destroy the creature... I knew that all of it was going to happen, and there's one more thing that I know. I know that if you stay out here much longer, you're going to die, and the creature will be left behind to mourn you."

For a moment, Frankenstein just looked up into Mark's eyes imploringly, but at last, a look of great peace crept over his face, and he nodded. After a few more seconds, he looked out the window, at the ice that surrounded the ship, and it was only then that he spoke.

"You've never told me your name, and now, I'm not sure I even want to hear it. Listen to me. For all your knowledge, there are things you just don't understand. I never really thought that I could kill him. I had my hopes, but only because of the horrible pain in my heart. In strength, speed, intellect, ingenuity, talent for manipulating others... In every way, he's my superior. I could never compete with him. No man can. You of all people should know this."

Mark felt a bit flustered by that remark, but he didn't interrupt.

"The death of my wife was my only reason for coming this far," Frankenstein continued, "but I see I've gone too far already. I think that I am about to die, just as you've said, whether we turn back or not. There's no point in risking other lives needlessly. Still, the thought of that brute, mourning my death; suffering because of all the pain that he caused is an encouraging one. I've had time to think about this while I've been out here. In fact, I think I've been brooding, almost, and I've been a fool this whole time."

"You see," Frankenstein continued, "from the beginning, I've been shunning the monster because of his appearance. It filled me with horror, just to look at him, and I saw that horror, as a horror for the world. When I tried to grant his wish, and make a mate for him, the main thing that caused me to destroy my attempt in the end was the thought, that if I granted it, a new race of beings might be born; beings of horror, like himself. I was wrong to treat him that way, based only on how he looked, but I still feel that my decision was the correct one."

"Adam is a monster." Frankenstein said at last, looking back towards Mark again as he said those last words, "He's a monster, because I made him one, by not teaching him what he needed to learn; right from wrong, good from evil. I should never have abandoned him. I should have been there for him. Still, maybe his superior power would have made it impossible for me to teach him such lessons. Who knows? In any case, if he's to grow; to become the great man that he should be, there are many hard lessons that he has to learn, and one of those is that evil actions never go unpunished. Even when one thinks they've gotten away from the consequences of their actions, guilt will always be there, like a monster hiding behind every corner, just as it has been with me. If he feels guilt over what he's done to me, and to those I care about, then perhaps, there may yet be hope for him."

Then, Frankenstein looked down at the floor, and seemed to be refusing to say any more. However, Mark wasn't finished.

"You don't understand!" Mark exclaimed, "There isn't any hope, for him or any of us. He's going to make things a hundred times worse than they've ever been. Look at me."

However, at that moment, Mark saw that Victors arms had gone limp, and he was started to lean forward in his seat. Quickly, Mark rushed to catch him, but it was too late. No air moved near the face of Victor Frankenstein. There was no motion of his fingers. Just to be sure, Mark put one hand on the doctor's wrist, and began breathing harder, as he turned quickly to face the mate.

"Help me get him onto the bunk." Mark said, as the mate looked on in stupefied silence, "Dr. Frankenstein is dead."


End file.
